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Aug 12, 2018

Tennessee executes Billy Ray Irick for murder, rape of 7-year-old

Tennessee carried out its first execution of the year, putting to death a
man convicted of raping and killing a 7-year-old girl 32 years after
his conviction.
Billy Ray Irick, 59, died Thursday for the 1985 death of Paula Dyer. The
execution came after the Supreme Court refused to issue a stay.

Irick's lawyers said the state's lethal injection cocktail, including
midazolam, a sedative, may not work effectively and could leave the man
in pain.

Before he was administered the three-drug cocktail, Trick spoke his last words.

"I just want to say I'm really sorry. And that ... that's it," he said.

The Tennessean reported that Irick coughed and gasped for air, and his
faced turned purple after officials administered the drugs.

States began using midazolam to replace pentobarbital after European
makers of the latter drug halted sales to the United States for use in
executions. Critics of the drug's use in lethal injections question its
effectiveness, blaming it for prolonged and apparently painful
executions, including that of Dennis McGuire in Ohio and Clayton Lockett
in Oklahoma.

Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor disagreed with the court's decision not to stay the case Thursday.

"In refusing to grant Irick a stay, the court today turns a blind eye to
a proven likelihood that the state of Tennessee is on the verge of
inflicting several minutes of torturous pain on an inmate in its
custody, while shrouding his suffering behind a veneer of paralysis,"
Sotomayor wrote in her dissent," she wrote in her dissent.

"I cannot in good conscience join in this 'rush to execute' without
first seeking every assurance that our precedent permits such
results...if the law permits this execution to go forward in spite of
the horrific final minutes that Irick may well experience, then we
stopped being a civilized nation and accepted barbarism."